Mutation News and Research

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1% of the world's population carries a mutation almost guaranteed to lead to heart problems

Heart disease is the number one killer in the world and India carries more than its share of this burden.

19 Jan 2009

Researchers identify biochemical switch required for nerve cells to respond to DNA damage

The finding, scheduled for advance online publication in Nature Cell Biology, illuminates a connection between proteins involved in neurodegenerative disease and in cells' response to DNA damage.

19 Jan 2009

Three new genetic variations that increase the risk of obesity

The gene variant most strongly associated with childhood obesity and adult morbid obesity in the study is located near the PTER gene, the function of which is not known. This variant is estimated to account for up to a third of all childhood obesity, and a fifth of all cases of adult obesity.

19 Jan 2009

Bird flu returns to China and claims another life

This latest outbreak has claimed the life of a young woman in eastern China and a young girl in the north of the country remains critically ill.

19 Jan 2009

Breast cancer four times more likely in women with strong family history

Women who have a strong family history of breast cancer are over four times more likely to develop the disease than the general population, according to research published in the British Journal of Cancer.

19 Jan 2009

The worst luck in the world? The heart disease mutation carried by 60 million

Heart disease is the number one killer in the world and India carries more than its share of this burden. Moreover, the problem is set to rise: it is predicted that by 2010 India's population will suffer approximately 60% of the world's heart disease.

19 Jan 2009

Potential new biomarker for colon cancer

Cincinnati scientists have identified a new biomarker that could help predict a person's risk of developing colon cancer and how aggressive it may become.

19 Jan 2009

Study shows how defective DNA repair triggers 2 neurological diseases

Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have teased apart the biological details distinguishing two related neurological diseases-ataxia telangiectasia-like disease (ATLD) and Nijmegen breakage syndrome (NBS).

15 Jan 2009

Odors can alter gene expression in an olfactory neuron

New research from University of California, Davis, shows why a species of tiny worm can learn to ignore an odor – information that could have implications for how human memories are formed.

15 Jan 2009

Domain duplication, divergence, and loss events in vertebrate Msx paralogs reveal phylogenomically informed disease markers

The work of Forsyth scientist Peter Jezewski, DDS, Ph.D., has revealed that duplication and diversification of protein regions ('modules') within ancient master control genes is key to the understanding of certain birth disorders.

15 Jan 2009

Repressive protein plays unexpected role in odor adaptation

New research provides valuable insight into the molecular mechanisms that allow experience to influence behavior.

15 Jan 2009

New model system may better explain regulation of body weight

A new mathematical model of the physiological regulation of body weight suggests a potential mechanism underlying the difficulty of losing weight, one that includes aspects of two competing hypotheses of weight regulation.

15 Jan 2009

Scientists explain genetic disease first discovered in Quebec 24 years ago

Scientists at the MUHC and McGill University have identified a gene essential for the uptake of vitamin B12 in human cells.

15 Jan 2009

Research confirms value of risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy for women with BRCA mutations

Prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy-removal of the ovaries and fallopian tubes--reduces the relative risk of breast cancer by approximately 50 percent and the risk of ovarian and fallopian tube cancer by approximately 80 percent in women who carry a mutation in the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, researchers report in the January 13 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

13 Jan 2009

Natural 'defence' gene reveals how oestrogen fuels cancer

CANCER RESEARCH UK scientists have shown for the first time how a natural 'defence' gene involved in fighting infections such as common colds, can be triggered by hormones to ignite and drive cancers like breast, ovarian, and possibly prostate cancer. Their findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

13 Jan 2009